Sir Robert Heath, attorney-general of King Charles I of England, was granted the Cape Fear region of America, incorporated as the Province of Carolana, in 1629.[1] The charter was unrealized and ruled invalid, and a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, on March 24, 1663.[3] It was not until 1663 that the province became officially known as "Carolina."[4]Charles II granted the land to the eight Lords Proprietors in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660.[5] Charles II intended for the newly created province to serve as an English bulwark to contest lands claimed by Spanish Florida and prevent their northward expansion.[6][7] Led informally by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, the Province of Carolina was controlled from 1663 to 1729 by these lords and their heirs.

In 1669, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina divided the colony of Carolina into two provinces, Albemarle province in the north and Clarendon province in the south.[8] Due to dissent over the governance of the colony, and the distance between settlements in the northern half and settlements in the southern half, in 1691 a deputy governor was appointed to administer the northern half of Carolina (Albemarle province).[9] In 1712, the two provinces became separate colonies, the colony of North Carolina (formerly Albemarle province) and the colony of South Carolina (formerly Clarendon province).[10]

Although the division between the northern and southern governments became complete in 1712, both colonies remained in the hands of the same group of proprietors. A rebellion against the proprietors broke out in 1719 which led to the appointment of a royal governor for South Carolina in 1720. After nearly a decade in which the British government sought to locate and buy out the proprietors, both North and South Carolina became royal colonies in 1729.

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On October 30, 1629, King Charles I of England granted a patent to Sir Robert Heath for the lands south of 36 degrees and north of 31 degrees, "under the name, in honor of that king, of Carolana."[4][11]Carolus is Latin for 'Charles'. Heath wanted the land for French Huguenots, but when Charles restricted use of the land to members of the Church of England, Heath assigned his grant to George, Lord Berkeley.[12] King Charles I was executed in 1649 and Heath fled to France where he died. Following the 1660 restoration of the monarchy, Heath's heirs attempted to reassert their claim to the land, but Charles II ruled the claim invalid.

On March 24, 1663, Charles II issued a new charter to a group of eight English noblemen, granting them the land of Carolina, as a reward for their faithful support of his efforts to regain the throne of England. The eight were called Lords Proprietors or simply Proprietors. The 1663 charter granted the Lords Proprietor title to all of the land from the southern border of the Virginia Colony at 36 degrees north to 31 degrees north (along the coast of present-day Georgia).[3]

The Lords Proprietors, operating under their royal charter, were able to exercise their authority with nearly the independence of the king himself. The actual government consisted of a governor, a powerful council, on which half of the councillors were appointed by the Lords Proprietors themselves, and a relatively weak, popularly elected assembly.

Within three generations of Columbus, the Spanish from their Florida base had started to emigrate up the coast of modern North Carolina. A hostile Virginia tribe drove them back to Georgia.[citation needed] A Scottish contingent had meanwhile settled in South Carolina only to be extirpated by the Spanish, who inhabited Parris Island, SC, as late as 1655. The Spanish were again beaten back to Georgia.[13]

In 1663, Captain William Hilton had noted the presence of a wooden cross erected by the Spaniards that still stood before the town meeting house of the Indians living at what later became Port Royal.[15] In 1665, Sir John Yeamans established a second short-lived English settlement on the Cape Fear River, near present-day Wilmington, North Carolina, which he named Clarendon.

The Lords Proprietors founded a sturdier new settlement when they sent 150 colonists to the province in early 1670, landing them at a location south of the other settlements, near present-day Charleston, South Carolina. Many of the colonists were planters from Barbados. The "Charles Town" settlement, as it was known then, developed more rapidly than the Albemarle and Cape Fear settlements due to the advantages of a natural harbor and expanding trade with the West Indies. Charles Town was made the principal seat of government for the entire province; Lord Shaftesbury specified its street plan. The nearby Ashley and Cooper rivers are named for him.

Due to their remoteness from each other, the northern and southern sections of the colony operated more or less independently until 1691, when Philip Ludwell was appointed governor of the entire province. From that time until 1708, the northern and southern settlements remained under one government. The north continued to have its own assembly and council; the governor resided in Charles Towne and appointed a deputy-governor for the north. During this period, the two halves of the province began increasingly to be known as North Carolina and South Carolina.

Carolina was the first of three colonies in North America settled by the English to have a comprehensive plan. Known as the Grand Model, or Grand Modell, it was composed of a constitution and detailed guidelines for settlement and development. The constitution, titled Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, was drafted by the philosopher John Locke under the direction of Anthony Ashley Cooper (later made Earl of Shaftesbury).[16]

From 1708 to 1710, due to disquiet over attempts to establish the Anglican church in the province, the people were unable to agree on a slate of elected officials; consequently, there was no recognized and legal government for more than two years, a period which culminated in Cary's Rebellion when the Lords Proprietors finally commissioned a new governor. This circumstance, coupled with the Tuscarora War and the Yamasee War, and the inability of the Lords Proprietors to act decisively, led to separate governments for North and South Carolina.

Some take this period as the establishment of separate colonies, but that did not officially occur until 1729, when seven of the Lords Proprietors sold their interests in Carolina to the Crown, and both North Carolina and South Carolina became royal colonies. The eighth share was Sir George Carteret's, which had passed to his great-grandson John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. He retained ownership of a sixty-mile-wide strip of land in North Carolina adjoining the Virginia boundary, which became known as the Granville District. This district was to become the scene of many disputes, from 1729 until the American Revolutionary War, at which time it was seized by the North Carolina revolutionary government.

Governments under proprietary rule and under crown rule were similarly organized. The primary difference was who was to appoint the governing officials: the Lords Proprietors or the Sovereign.

^ abc"Charter of Carolina - March 24, 1663". Avalon Law. Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School. 2008. Archived from the original on February 7, 2009. Retrieved 10 February 2016. Know ye, that we of our further grace, certain knowledge, and meer motion, have thought fit to erect the same tract of ground, county, and island, into a province, and out of the fulness of our royal power and prerogative, we do, for us, our heirs and successors, erect, incorporate and ordain the same into a province, and call it the Province of Carolina,...